PHOTOS: The deadliest terror attacks at airports

Jinnah International Airport, Pakistan

Hours after the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan witnessed a terror attack, Rediff.com brings you some of the deadliest attacks at airports, which have left several dead and hundreds injured.

Heavily armed militants attacked Pakistan’s busiest airport in Karachi in which at least 28 persons, including 12 terrorists, were killed even as the military mounted another operation amid reports of fresh firing.

Explosions and gunfire rang out as the attackers wearing military uniforms and suicide vests, and armed with grenades and rocket launchers attacked the Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. Twelve hours after the attack began, security forces announced they had cleared the airport of the militants.

Domodedovo Airport, Moscow

A suicide bomber killed at least 35 people at Russia’s busiest airport, Domodedovo airport, on January 24, 2011. The bombing killed at least 37 people and injured some 180. The blast occurred at the international arrivals section of DomodedovoAirport.

The attack was the act of a suicide bomber who stuffed a homemade bomb with small metal objects to make it more deadly.

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Image: A woman cries as her family relative was injured in the airport attack.Photographs: Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters

PNS Mehran air base

The Pakistani Taliban attacked a naval airbase in the city of Karachi on 22 May 2011 sparking an hour-long battle in which several people were killed and at least two naval aircraft were destroyed. Fifteen members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan stormed the three hangars housing aircraft at the Mehran naval aviation base. They used rocket-propelled grenades to damage and destroy several warplanes. In the course of the event, 15 attackers killed 18 military personnel and wounded 16 in a sophisticated terrorist attack.

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Image: One of the aircraft at the Mehran naval aviation base after troops ended operations against militants in Karachi. Photographs: Athar Hussain/Reuters

Glasgow Airport

On Saturday, June 30, 2007, the Glasgow International Airport witnessed a terror attack when two men rammed a petrol-filled, four-wheel-drive vehicle into the airport. It was the first terror attack to take place in Scotland since the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. The car’s driver was severely injured in the ensuing fire and five members of the public were also injured, although none were seriously harmed.

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Image: Officials survey the scene where the car crashed into the airport.Photographs: Mark Runnacles/Reuters

Madrid-Barajas Airport

On December 30 2006, a van bomb exploded in the Terminal 4 parking area at the Madrid-Barajas Airport in Spain, killing two and injuring 52. Later, the Basque nationalist and separatist organisation Euskadi Ta Askatasuna claimed responsibility for the attack.

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Image: Smoke billows from the airport after a van bomb exploded in the parking area.Photographs: Arturo Rodriguez Castillo/Getty Images

Los Angeles Airport

A lone terrorist gunman approached the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles International Airport in 2002, pulled out two pistols and started shooting at the 90 passengers standing in the line. Three people died in the attack.

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Image: A tourist takes a photo of the ticket counter where the terrorist had pulled out two pistols and open fired on the passengers.Photographs: Adrees Latif/Reuters

Bandaranaike Airport, Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan rebels launched one of their boldest and most damaging attacks in July 2001 when 14 members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Black Tiger suicide squad infiltrated Katunayake air base and using suicide bombers, mortars, guns and explosives, destroyed eight military and five passenger aircraft. Eight Tigers and three air force officers died in the battle at the air base. The six remaining LTTE members then crossed the runway to nearby Bandaranaike Airport. Using their weapons, they began blowing up civilian aircraft, which were all empty.

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Image: Planes get ready to take off at the Bandaranaike Airport.Photographs: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Reuters

Esenboga International Airport, Turkey

On August 7, 1982 members of the Pierre Gulumian commando group from the Armenian militant organisation ASALA launched an attack at the Esenboga International Airport in Ankara, Turkey. The attack killed nine people and injured 72 others. The attack was carried out by Zohrab Sarkissian and Levon Ekmekjian (Ekmekdjian, Ekmekçiyan), who exploded a bomb in the middle of the crowded check-in area at Ankara’s Esenboga Airport, and then opened fire with sub-machine guns on passport-control officers and passengers.

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Image: Cargo is loaded on to a plane at the Esenbo?a International Airport.Photographs: Reuters

Entebbe Airport, Uganda

Operation Entebbe was a counter-terrorist hostage-rescue mission carried out by commandos of the Israel Defense Forces at EntebbeAirport in Uganda on 4 July 1976. A week earlier, the an Air France plane carrying with 248 passengers was hijacked, by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the German Revolutionary Cells, and flown to Entebbe. They then demanded that Israel release 53 convicted terrorists. In an operation to release the hostages, 100 commandos stormed the airport and released 102 hostages.

Image: Hostages are reunited with their family members after the Israeli forces secured their release.Photographs: Getty Images